Archbishop's interview with Press Association

Friday 16th March 2012

Archbishop Rowan Williams spoke to the Press Association following the announcement that he will step down from the office of Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of December 2012 to take up the position of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Watch the video of clips below, or read a transcript of the complete interview which follows.

Transcript:

PA

You’ll be 62 when you leave the post. You could stay for another 8 years - people will be wondering why you’ve decided to go at this point.

RW

Well, at the end of this year I’ll have been 10 years in post as Archbishop, and just over 20 years as a bishop. So that’s part of it – feeling that after 10 years it’s proper to pray and reflect and review your options. And also, this year a number of watersheds come up. There are some things that are coming to term and some processes that I’ve seen through, including, for example, 10 years of running the Christian-Muslim Seminar, Building Bridges, [this phase of] which is coming to an end this year [although it will continue through Georgetown University]; the legislation in the Church of England about women bishops review reaching its final stage this summer; and I have a meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in the autumn. So, a number of what I call ‘watersheds’ which seem to make this a reasonable moment to at least think about moving on. And when a possibility arrived that looked credible and attractive, it seemed right to think about it.

There’s also the fact that the next Lambeth Conference is due in 2018. I certainly felt I needed a good 5 years to get myself ready for the last Lambeth Conference - there had to be a lot of thinking and planning, a lot of consideration about what sort of event it should be, and I’m very eager to let my successor have a good run-up to that.

PA

During your time as Archbishop, there have been a lot of difficulties within the Anglican Communion over the issue of gays. I wondered if, in many ways, you might be relieved to be going?

RW

Crisis management is never a favourite activity, I have to admit, but it’s not as if that has overshadowed everything. It’s certainly been a major nuisance, but in every job that you’re in, there are controversies and conflicts and this one isn’t going to go away in a hurry. So I can’t say that it's a great sense of ‘free at last’.

PA

There have also been delicate negotiations over women bishops, and a lot of controversy over that. Are you confident that you will be able to come to some sort of compromise acceptable to both sides in July when the General Synod votes?

RW

I’m actually very hopeful that there’s plenty of goodwill to make things work in the Synod. Between now and then there’s a huge amount still to do in terms of building relationships, building trust, exploring what options might make the legislation just that tiny bit more acceptable all round, and so I’m determined to carry on with that work. And I do feel quite upbeat about that at present - for all the difficulties, there’s a huge amount of goodwill.

PA

How would you look back over your 10 years as Archbishop of Canterbury?

RW

It’s impossible to register whether it’s been ‘a success’ or not. I look back on it chiefly as a time of enormous pressure, yes, and plenty of invitations to all sorts of things, to engage in all sorts of contexts – many many opportunities and lots of demands.

I think the two things I look back on with greatest satisfaction are that we’ve managed in the Church of England to launch this very new mission outreach programme Fresh Expressions, and get the Church of England to recognise the possibility of new styles of congregational life and new styles of training for ministers to go with it. I think that’s really begun to build itself in to the life of the Church.

And in the last couple of years we’ve also managed to launch the new Anglican Alliance for relief and development worldwide, so that we’ve put together a co-ordinating and umbrella body that helps the various relief agencies that are involved in the life of the Anglican Communion worldwide to work better together - and that so far has been very well received.

So those are, in my mind, some of the big positives of the last 10 years. I look back on those with a lot of gratitude.

And then, simply the opportunity of travelling in the Anglican Communion. I suppose, most poignantly, last year in Zimbabwe. But also visits to Congo and Sudan; visits to Pakistan at a time of some stress and tension there; and, of course, repeated visits to the Middle East over the last 10 years. It’s enormously stretching and inspiring, because you see people really work in the middle of appalling circumstances – heartbreaking in some ways, but a great enrichment.

PA

Do you feel it has been a privilege being Archbishop of Canterbury?

RW

It has been an enormous privilege being Archbishop of Canterbury. You are given access to the life of churches worldwide, in a really unique way. And it’s not just travelling abroad, of course: every year I make 2 or 3 visits to a diocese in England, and just spend 3 or 4 days going around visiting parishes, schools and so forth. And the privilege is that you’re taken into the heart of the local church’s life for a few days. You see what really matters to people in parishes and schools and prisons and hospices and so forth. I think there must be very few jobs where you have quite that degree of ‘open doors’ for you. And of course I deeply treasure the connection with the Diocese of Canterbury - the possibility of regularly going around there and simply ministering in country parishes in East Kent.

PA

I think you’ve mentioned this already, but what’s been the best part of your job, and what’s been the worst?

RW

The best part of the job has certainly been seeing churches at grass roots worldwide – seeing why and how they matter to people. And being given the privilege and the possibility of sharing what you hear in one part of the world, or in one part of the Church of England, with other parts. You can become a kind of ‘switchboard’ for good news - you can receive good news about what’s happening in one part of the world and pass it on elsewhere, and feel very much enriched and stretched in the process.

The worst aspects of the job I think have been the sense that there are some conflicts that won’t go away, however long you struggle with them. And that not everybody in the Anglican Communion or even in the Church of England is eager to avoid schism or separation. I’ve certainly regarded it as a real priority to try and keep people in relationship with each other. That is what bishops have to do - what archbishops above all have to do.

PA

A lot of people will think that the worst crisis for you was the row over your remarks in early 2008 on Sharia law. I wondered if you still stand by what you said, and if you regret anything about that episode.

RW

I reread quite recently the text of the lecture on Sharia law, and I still stand by the argument of it. It could have been clearer, I am sure. That can always be said, especially of things I write! But I noticed that within a few months, Lord Phillips, President of the Supreme Court, was saying something very similar, and at least raising a question which needed discussion. I was a bit taken aback by the violence of the reaction; it became a feeding frenzy for a few days. But I didn’t feel any lasting damage was done. I feel that an important point was raised, a point about how the single law of the land works with and legitimates other kinds of jurisdiction within it, which already happens. The word ‘sharia’ is, of course, very emotive for people and in spite of attempts to explain that it doesn’t mean what a judge in Saudi Arabia might think it means, people still have that image in their minds. That’s where I could have been clearer, I’m sure.

PA

You’re known for your willingness to debate with atheists such as Richard Dawkins. Do you think that Christianity is losing the battle in Britain against secularisation?

RW

I don’t think Christianity is losing a “battle against secularisation”. I certainly don’t get that impression when I’m with congregations, when I’m in church schools or in many settings like that - even when I’m talking about these things in a very mixed group, let’s say, of 6th formers. I think there’s a great deal of interest still in the Christian faith, and although I think there is also a lot of ignorance and rather dim-witted prejudice about the visible manifestations of Christianity which sometimes clouds the discussion, I don’t think that there’s somehow a single great argument that the Church is losing. I think people have come back to debate, quite properly, with Richard Dawkins, with Philip Pullman, with Tony Grayling and others - that argument goes on very robustly.

What I think slightly shadows the whole thing is this sense that there are an awful lot of people now of a certain generation who don’t really know how religion works, let alone Christianity in particular. And that leads to confusions and sensitivities in the wrong areas – you know, does wearing a cross offend people who have no faith or non-Christians? I don’t think it does, but people worry that it will, and that’s partly because there’s a slight tone-deafness about how religious belief works. So, yes there’s a challenge, and yes the Church’s public role is more contested than it used to be, and yes we have to earn our right to speak more than perhaps was once the case. But that’s probably good for us. I’ve sometimes said, I think we should live in what I like to call ‘an argumentative democracy’, an argumentative pluralism. And for Christianity to be able to respond clearly and robustly in that setting is hugely important. I hope I can continue to contribute to that public discussion in the new role.

PA

You’ve got another 9 months as Archbishop of Canterbury. What are you planning to do - what will be the highlights of your remaining time?

RW

Well, I would have said ‘business as usual’ were it not for the fact that it’s an unusually busy and demanding year. As I’ve said, we’ve got a very very important piece of legislation to complete in the debate about women bishops, which will be in July. We also have the Queen’s Jubilee, we have the Olympics, and I’m involved in various ways in celebrating both of those. In the autumn of this year we will have a meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in New Zealand, and bolted on to that for me will be a visit to the Church in Papua New Guinea, which is a church quite poor and quite struggling but very impressive in many ways, and I’m looking forward a great deal to spending time there. I’ll be making 2 visits to English dioceses. I mentioned that I make a regular habit of going into a diocese for a few days at a time – this year I’ll be in Coventry for a bit, and Gloucester as well. So, plenty to do, and I don’t think that there’s any risk of diminution of energy and activity in those 9 months.

PA

What are you looking forward to about your new post?

RW

Over the last few years, there have been all kinds of ideas about the Church, about the faith, which I have longed for more time to explore and write up a bit. So I’m hoping for more space to write and to think in that way. I’m looking forward certainly to being part of an academic community with a good exchange of ideas, and to the challenges of helping that community to work, which is part of the job of the head of a College. And I think it’s not a million miles away from trying to make the community of the Anglican family work.

PA

Will you miss Lambeth Palace?

RW

I think you miss anywhere that you’ve lived for a long time, and there are bits of the Palace which are very special. I shall miss the Crypt Chapel, where we pray together every morning. And I say we ‘pray together’ because one of the things which people don’t realise about Lambeth Palace is that it is a household, it’s not an office block. People live here – some of my colleagues live on-site, we meet a lot socially, and we meet in Chapel. I have to say that the sense of being part of the community here has been extremely strong. It’s interesting that people who have worked here for a bit invariably say ‘it feels like a family’. So all of that, we shall miss deeply.

PA

I presume you’ll miss Canterbury as well.

RW

I’ll miss Canterbury enormously. It’s such a privilege to live there in Canterbury a hundred yards from the Cathedral. To be able to go into the Cathedral early in the morning on your own and experience the building in that unique way. To be part of the great celebrations there, the great events of Christmas and Holy Week and Easter, the Youth Pilgrimage on Easter Monday, ordaining priests and deacons there. It’s very very special – it’s a building absolutely drenched with significance and prayer. And once again I can say it’s been a wonderful community to be a part of - the congregation of the Cathedral, the staff of the Cathedral, the Dean. I couldn’t have asked for more positive, welcoming, affirming colleagues there.

PA

The last question is, do you have a favoured successor.

RW

Yes I do - I’d like the successor that God would like. I think that it’s a job of immense demands and I would hope that my successor has the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros really! He will, I think, have to look with positive, hopeful eyes on a Church which, for all its problems, is still for so many people a place to which they resort in times of need and crisis, a place to which they look for inspiration and I think the Church of England is a great treasure. I wish my successor well in the stewardship of it.